fall to pieces
by shiksa goddess
Summary: i just wanna sit and stare at you/auslly, grieving. non-linear


**Title: fall to pieces  
>InspirationPlaylist: Fall to Pieces- Avril Lavigne, I'll Be- Edwin McCain, I Wouldn't Mind- He is We, Here Comes the Sun- The Beatles  
>Disclaimer: Yeah, I'm 12. I don't own anything. Lowercase for stylistic purposes. <strong>

something was most definitely wrong with ally dawson, because her mom wasn't supposed to be dead, she wasn't supposed to cry, and austin moon most definitely should not be holding her.

/

"austin, my mom died a few days ago."

He nearly drops the phone, and he _hates_ that he can hear pain in her voice.

"i'm sorry, ally." he knows it doesn't really help, but he's not sure if there's words appropriate for moments like these.

"everyone is. my dad's making arrangements now."

"so is this why i've never met her?"

"yeah, she's been battling cancer for a while. it finally overtook her. look, austin, i'm sorry to drop this on you. i-i just wasn't sure who else to call."

he checks his clock. "ally, are you at sonic boom?"

"of course, someone's got to be."

he walks in five minutes later, surprised he wasn't already arrested for speeding and driving without a proper license.

brown eyes meeting brown, she hops off the counter and silently runs into his embrace.

"i'm glad you called me."

She nods against his grey hoodie.

"the song probably won't be done by this weekend." she whispers

he almost laughs at the fact that even in times like this, she's trying to put his happiness before her own, and he presses his lips to the crown of her head.

"i know."

/  
>she throws a rock into her so-called "replacement pond", a small puddle outside the mall that never evaporated.<p>

he sits besides her, not caring that the dewy grass was staining his white jeans.

"you knew i'd be here." She states definitively, because she knows that he knows her all too well.

"of course." he hands her a metamorphic rock, black striped with white and gray.

she tosses that one too, but it bounces off the edge and hits her shin.

"she looked too peaceful. it almost didn't seem fair. but dead-" the word catches in her throat. "deceased people always look that way, right?"

"um, yeah, i guess."

she looks at him as if she can see through his soul, which honestly, she probably could. she looked like her mother, if five minutes seeing a woman in a casket gave him anything, with the same cream pallor, coffee-brown hair, and long legs.

"i miss her."

"that's normal." he throws another rock in himself, but stops when he realized ally had stopped doing it.

she scoots closer to him. "but you're here." she places her hand in the minute space between them. he places his on top of hers.

"forever, ally."

she smiles but smacks his arm. "don't lie to me, austin moon."

but she kisses his cheek, so he thinks maybe she believes him a little bit.

/

she kind of likes that he wore a purple shirt to her mom's funeral, amidst all the grey and black. it gets a smile out of her, if nothing else.

dez and trish sat in the row behind her, but austin sat right next to her and her dad. he promised not to leave her, and he kept his promises. plus, she wanted him there.

when she got up to speak (_c'mon ally, you can do this_) she sputtered and stalled and coughed and her stage-fright nerves mixed with her grief made her break down before she could really say anything. he regretted that this time, the problem couldn't be solved with a guitar and _The Butterfly Song._

when she stumble-fell off the podium after five minutes of sobbing, austin and his awkwardly purple shirt was there to catch her.

she clutched him, soaking the shirt through. he wrapped his arms around her small frame, noticing the absence of her usual whimsical pieces of clothing. there was no yellow tank top or butterfly skirt. instead there was black.

he liked the butterflies better.

/

no one smiles, she notices. not really. on their way out the door, some pity-smiled at her and slipped her a twenty, as if that would compensate for a lifetime of no motherly love. her mother has been diminished to a square of land and a temporary grave marker, and people are _paying_ her.

austin holds her a little too intimately for just friends, which _is_ what they are because she can't be focusing on things like that and _god ally just shut up_.

she ends up eating a brownie and letting the adults cry because she doesn't want to care. austin kicks a deflated latex balloon from past festivities in this hall.

her uncle walks in to see the two.

"you take care of her now, austin." and he means it, not like the cheesy tv fathers who say this with a wink, no, his voice is raw and sincere and he just needs to know someone will be there for his niece.

"he's not-" "she's not-" "we're not-" they protest.

"i will." he promises finally.

he tightens his vice-grip on her waist, and she delicately finishes off her brownie.

/

there's still a chocolate impression of himself sticking out of his closet, she notices.

"sorry to intrude, but trish is sick and my dad doesn't want me alone this weekend."

"it's cool, ally." he takes her bag and sticks it in the crevice between his drum kit and keyboard.

she plops down gently on his blue bedspread, the one poster in a low-end magazine of him hung above the bedpost.

she notices no bunk beds, cots, not even a pillow and blanket on the floor.

"hey, austin, where am i going to sleep?"

"oh! i don't know how to do laundry, so you're just going to sleep in my bed with me."

the ally of three months ago would've been pouring detergent into a washing machine just to avoid an awkward moment, but this present ally just paled.

"um. where's your mom?" she squeaked.

"she's in Cozumel with my dad on business. ally, nothing's going to happen, we'll be fine."

"that's not what i meant."

but later that night, she was fine with the heat of his body in close proximity to hers.

"night, ally."

"goodnight, austin."

she doesn't know if he's aware of it, but his arm crosses her stomach, and it feels familiar. and good.

/

"_you so know me,I can hardly breathe_"

he knows she could be the singer if she wanted.

"no offense, al, but i'm not singing that." he jokes. he probably would, actually, if that's what she wanted.

she tears the sheet music off the piano stand and strikes a chord.

"ugh!" she wants to faceplant into the stupid piano, but she determines that would hurt.

she's not exactly a masochist.

he stops toying with his look-a-like foam spitter. "um...you want a pickle?"

"hmm, that's sweet, but no."

her eyes are still bloodshot from crying into the night, which he knows is causing the wet spots on his sheets.

"whatever happened to the love song you tried to get me to sing?"

she lifts her chin off her palm. "i'm not sure, it's probably in my songbook somewhere."

"oh, ok, then-" he reaches for the brown leather book, then snaps his hand back, asking for her permission, which she allows with a passive wave of hand.

he flips through the seemingly endless pages, realizing the last entry was about two weeks ago, about when her mom passed on.

the songs got morbid, and he chose to ignore the melancholy words and introverted anger she released only to a book.

he found the page of abandoned lyrics. she'd titled "_closer_". she must've forgotten that she wrote in minute letters "for austin" right next to the title.

he set the book in front of her without another word. she glanced at the page and blushed, which he assumed meant she saw the note.

she broke into the lyrics. _"love,love,love. it's a special kind of feeling. if what you want is to get close, gotta go for what you want."_

she looked so deep into the song, and he instantly felt bad for shooting it down.

well, the whole dallas thing was obviously a lie.

she patted the space on the piano bench next to her. "help me!"

"you're the songwriter!" he teased, sliding next to her.

"i've lost my inspiration." she stared at him meaningfully.

_kiss her!_ his concience screams. his real one,not his trish-conscience, that'd be awkward.

but he doesn't lean in and neither does she, and they both stare at the keys of the piano.

"_i know there's something there, somethin' hard for you to share, you don't have to be afraid, i know who you are_." he sings, feeling stuck. she _was_ getting the message right?

_" i can see through all your scars, feels like we're just chasing cars, if you want us to get close, gotta go for what you want."_

she breathes, relieved to be done.

"it's a nice song." he tells her softly.

she tears the page out, crumples it and tosses it into a corner.

"i know."

/

"thanks for coming." she wraps them up in a thin flannel blanket, an old-fashioned lantern lighting the late evening sky.

"when do i not?"

she kisses his cheek. "i suppose that's true."

a gravestone marked "penny avalon-dawson, september 2nd, 1971- january 3, 2012" sits at the head of ally's campout.

"where's your dad?"

"he couldn't come, he's deathly afraid of cemeteries at night." she shivers.

he places his jacket around her shoulders. "I don't blame him."

she nods. "hey, austin , i wrote part of another song. i don't really think you'd sing it, but it's about you and i want you to at least read it.

she hands him an open songbook. he reads the song

_"forever is a long time, but I wouldn't mind spending it by your side"_

_"_ally, there's one line here."

"i know, but it says a lot."

he takes her hand in his. "we will _always_ be best friends, ally."

she takes her hand back. "so that's all we are? _best friends_?" she stares into the lantern, her eyes becoming and auburn color in the orange glow of the lamp.

he turns her face towards him. "well.. what would you prefer? boyfriend and girlfriend?"

she looks at him and smiles shyly. "yeah, i think i like the sound of that."

he leans toward her, and she glances at her mom's stone before he plants his lips on hers. this kiss is chaste, innocent, and then it gets deeper, feverish and she feels herself melting into him because it's _austin_ and she wants this.

when she wakes up that next morning, he's staring at her and he's pulled her closer than ever, his arm clutching her tightly as always.

somehow, she thinks her mom was helping them out.

/

she pulls a lone daisy out off the wet sod near the replacement pond, and plucks a petal off.

_he loves me_

" you heard him last night , right mom? he loves me. and i love him,too."

_he loves me not_

another petal flies from her fingers into the shallow puddle.

"first love can last, right mom?"

_he loves me._

she throws the remainder of the flower back on the ground.

"even if it doesn't...we'll last."

a cool breeze blows her hair into her face, and she smiles, knowing somewhere, her mother agreed.

/

she holds a Venus razor to her tiny little arm, placing it right where she thinks a vein would be. she's not even sure how to do this, but she figures it's the only way to release the pain.

her mother would say something to stop her from doing this, but her mother wasn't here, now was she?

she cowers down behind the couch in the practice room, attempting to stay hidden. she makes the first small incision near her hand, and a little too much blood comes out. she gasps at the red liquid dripping off her wrists and coating her razor.

austin walks in, unaware of ally's activities "hey, ally, i-"

"austin!" she yells, dropping the razor, her porcelain face frozen in an 'o'.

austin's eyebrows furrow. "what are you doing behind the couch?" he smiles curiously, striding over to her.

"austin, no, stay-" he's too close. he sees the bloody razor, sees the red liquid dripping from her poorly concealed hand. he grabs it and turns the palm so he can see it, shocked that his best friend would bring herself to such measures.

"ally, what did you do?"

she looks down and clamps her arm to her side, staining her new grey skirt with _redredred_. when she doesn't answer, he wraps his arms around her. she hesitates, then wraps the non- bloody arm around his waist.

he gingerly wipes the dry blood from her wrist as she winces at his contact with the raw wound.

"why'd you do it ,ally?"

"i'm just trying not to break down, austin."

"yeah, well, good job with that." he snorts, holding her arm up for emphasis.

a tear falls down her pale cheek at his words.

"i'm sorry. i shouldn't have said that."

she shakes her head. "no, you're right. it was stupid."

she leans her head against his shoulder. "i thought i was the sane one."

"you are, you're just in pain."

"i'm not sure how you're healing me austin, but for whatever reason, you are."

he laughs. "just promise me you're never going to do that again"

she nods. if she needed a shoulder to cry on, she was goddamn glad it was him.

/

he had that superhero complex, and ally hated to love it.  
>but this time, she was falling slowly and austin couldn't do anything about it, because he pushed her down.<p>

"i thought you were coming with me to the cemetery."

"i'm sorry, ally, but this could be huge for my career."

tears welled in her big brown eyes and she was angry at the both of them.

"so you're putting your career over me? again? after all the songs i've written, all the dedication i've given to you and your music, and you won't stay with me on the day i need you most?"

she pulled on his heartstrings, and he wanted to hug her and kiss her tears away and finally admit he loved her so she'd be happy again, but all he did was look down in shame.

it wasn't the correct response, as ally jumped off his bed.

she shoved her songbook at him, and the "A" necklace he gave her for christmas, identical to the one on his neck.

"take my songbook, and take your goddamn necklace, rip my fucking heart out of my chest and take that, too, stomp on it. i don't care. just get out of my life."

she stormed to his doorway, but he caught her arm. "al, i think you're overreacting-"

"i'm not overreacting!"

she shrugged out of his arms, and he tried leaning in to kiss her but she squirmed away.

"not this time, austin." she shook her head. "not anymore."

he sits at the airport terminal, knowing ally should be next to him, laughing through her pain and trying her hardest to color outside the lines. he flips open her songbook, to find the most ingenious song ever. she'd took what they'd become and wrapped it in a beautiful melody.

he wonders if she could hear it in her head right now, too.

_I don't want to fall to pieces, I just wanna sit and stare at you._

_I don't want a conversation, I just want to cry in front of you._

_I don't want to talk about it, 'cause I''m in love with you._

_You're the only one I'll be with to the end,_

_when I come undone you bring me back again,_

_back under the stars, back into your arms._

he let out a low whistle. at the bottom of the page, ally had written " ally dawson is in love with austin moon."

_well, shit._ he thought. _i can't leave her here now, on her mom's six-month anniversary._  
><em>not when I'm in love with her.<em>

grabbing his carry-on duffel bag, he ran out of the airport, leaving his check-in unclaimed and on a flight to california. who needed those clothes, anyways?

at least now he didn't have to pay all that parking.

he rushed into the miami mall, peering into the glass doors of sonic boom. only ally's dad stood at the counter, tending to a customer solemnly.

he was going to floor it to her house, but realized where she-and himself- were supposed to go today.

He pulled up to the wrought-iron gates of Blackwood cemetery. her coffee-coloured hair gleamed in the dim sunlight.

she looks up at him, but turns back to her book.

"scout finch is my new hero. this book is my hero."

reading_to kill a mockingbird_was not on austin moon's to-do list ,however, getting ally dawson back was.

"it looks like a good book. is it for your book club?"

she shakes her head energetically, her hair whacking him in the face with every move.

it smells like vanilla & cherries.

"i quit that and cloudwatching club when you said they were boring. it was pretty true."  
>he feels a little bad about that. but maybe it was for the best.<p>

"well, you got rid of pickles, too."

she smiles. "you're my goose." she ruffles his hair. "my silly austin-goose."

"so, what are we now?" he grabs her pointer finger and starts fiddling with it.

"_doubt thou the stars are fire_, _doubt that the sun doth move_._doubt truth to be a liar,_ _but never doubt i love."_

austin didn't know what came upon ally to reference classic literature to him- shakespeare's _hamlet_, he finds out later.

"i don't know what that means," he admits foolishly, breaking into his trademark smile that she loved.

"just kiss me, you illiterate fool." she smiles, but only for a second before his lips capture hers.

his kiss melts on her tongue, and she realized just how much she missed this in the approximately twenty-four hours she went without it.

"you knew you weren't gonna leave me," he teased, poking his girlfriend in the side.

she scoffs. "uh,i could say the same to you, mr-i'm-gonna-leave-my-songwriter-girlfriend-for-a-press-junket!"

he giggles sheepishly, putting an arm around her shoulders. "yeah..sorry."

she switches positions so that her head is comfortably placed in his lap.

she's staring at her mom's stone, where flowers-daisies, ally's favorite, austin knew- lay alongside a rosary.

"so what changed your mind?"

"you."

"and...?"

"well...this." he pulls the songbook out of his small backback.

"ally,do you love me?"

she turns in his lap so their eyes meet. "of course i do. you're my best friend."

he shakes his head, reminded of the note she'd written.

"well, yeah. but are you _in_ love with me?"

she looks a little shocked. "um..." she kind of chokes on her words.

"yeah. i am."

"good. Because, ally dawson, i am in love with you too."

he helps her light the candles for her mom when darkness falls. they barely say another word the whole night.  
>the funny thing is, they don't really need to.<p>

/

penny dawson lay in a hospital bed, pretending to be interested in a 2004 episode of _days of our lives_. but she hates soap operas, and this is no different.

her daughter, ally, is sitting in one of those cheap green hospital chairs with the cushions that stick to your legs when you try to get up, attempting to get a video up of her friend austin singing a song she wrote. the video opens and the blonde boy starts singing "_it's me, it's you"_

her mom smiles. "he looks pretty interested in you." she glances to the screen where austin is pointing to a mortified ally.

ally's eyes widen. "no,no, it's not like that, mom."

penny laughs at her daughter's insistence. "then why are you changing yourself for him?"

"what's that supposed to mean?"

"you used to write such emotional, passionate songs. now they've turned into teeny-bopper your book club and cloudwatching? you quit those because they were _boring_to him."

"he said he likes music that was like a splash of sunshine. as his songwriter, it's my job to write songs that fit his taste. And they _were_ boring, mom."

Penny moves a frail hand towards her daughter. "don't lose yourself, babygirl."

"i'm not, mom. maybe i am changing, but i'm not changing for him. if anything, it's just being around him is changing me. and I think it's for the better."

her mom sighs. " god, how'd you turn out so smart?" she brushes the brown waves behind ally's ear, waves identical to her own before she'd lost them to chemotherapy.

"so how long have you been in love with him?"

ally looks startled. "do you think i could be in love with him?" she whispers. "i'm only fifteen, how do i know what being in love is?"

penny smiles again.  
>"you are <em>so<em> much like me when i was your age. too logical for my own good. i met your father when i was fifteen, and sometimes i wondered if what we had was love. but to this day, he's here with me. that's love if i've ever seen it."

ally glanced to her father, asleep in the second green chair, where he'd been for the past two nights.

" what i'm trying to say is, sometimes you have to let go of what's 'real' and find the magic in life. and never, ever stop believing in love."

" so i could be in love with my best friend?"

"i don't know for sure, you have to figure that one out youself. but from what i've heard, he sounds like a keeper."

ally nods, still a little confused.

her mom looks at the computer screen, frozen on a shot of austin in a dance move ally could never replicate.

"plus, he's pretty cute. you'd have attractive children.

ally blushes.

/

she likes the way it sounds. _ally moon. austin and ally moon._she's always had a thing for words, and the alliterative-ness of their names fit well together. she thinks.

however, the original moon was drumming with corn dogs. again.

"austin! didn't we have this discussion like, a year and a half ago?"

"oh! well..you want a corndog?"

"you know, i would, but i'm still on the not-eating-anything-gross diet."

he came over and wrapped his arms around her waist. "why? you're so beautiful already."

she laughed and pushed him away. "thanks, but don't flatter me. it's our first half-off day here at the store and i want everything to be perfect."

"like you?" he smiles.

she smiles and twists up to kiss him. when they detach, she smacks his arm softly.

"what did i tell you about flattering me?"

he slithers a hand around her stomach and sets his head on her shoulder. "mmm, do it every possible chance?"

"well yeah, but not now. i really need to take care of the store. and write a song for you. and make sure they're getting the arrangement right for my mother's birthday bouquet.."

she sighs and smiles radiantly at him, an eager, over-happy, ready-to-take-on-the-world smile.

to austin, she certainly doesn't _seem_ happy.

"you can't lie to me, ally. i'm not sure if you know this, but we know each other better than we know ourselves." he smiles. she entwines their fingers.

"yeah, i know."

"then you know I'm here for you if you need any help with all of this crap, right?"

she smiles for real this time. "yeah. I know."

/

she never really thought about dying. but, she supposes when she will, her husband would be a good person to be with her.

ally moon is the mother to three, grandmother to five, and wife to one. when she was a little girl, she used to write songs and hope that she'd live a happy life with someone she loved. the only thing that got her through her mother's death was her current husband, legendary pop singer austin moon. at the age of eighty-seven, she passed on in austin's arms.

she wanted to die happy.

she thinks she did.

/

there they are, twenty-one and strong as ever. an engagement ring sparkles on her finger.

ally lays the flowers- the daisies again- on her mother's weathered grave as austin watches from the marshy grass patch behind her.

" i wish you could come to our wedding, mom. it's going to be september 2nd, which would be your forty-seventh birthday. it's going to be lovely.

i still write songs for him, he's huge now, and he seems to have adapted to love songs more and more. he claims it's because i write love songs best, but i know him all too well, it's obviously because he loves me.

he got me a goose for our six-year anniversary, and i named it after him, because he is my goose. i got him a coloring book and some crayons, so now he can color outside the lines all he wants.

oh yeah, he also got me this ring. he wanted to get me a huge rock of a diamond, but he remembered i don't even like jewelry all that much, and i certainly don't like ostentatious things in general. i guess he knows me pretty well, too."

she looks down at the sod beneath her and laughs. she looks back at her fiancee and holds out her hand. he smiles and takes it before kneeling in front of the headstone beside her.

their hands are still attached when ally begins to talk again.

"you were right, mom, about everything. i was in love with him then, and i am now. "

austin takes his hand from hers to wrap his arm around her shoulders, prompting her to lean her head into the crook of his neck.

"he really is a keeper. he's been by me through your passing, high school, and he's getting me through college, and whoever knows what we'll go through next. y'know, besides the wedding.

i know you're helping me out, too. i love you mom, and i wish you could still be here. dad's fine, the shop is fine, but nothing will ever be the same without you. so, take care of yourself, mom. austin and i have to go meet with his publicist and the new mrs dez spinner, as trish likes to refer to herself now."

she stood up, brushing the dirt off her knees. a ray of sunshine unexpectedly hit the spot they were in.

in a certain slant of light, that was almost a miracle.

austin tugged her hand. "you ready, als?"

she nods. "bye, mom."

as austin leads her to their car, she sort of wonders if she finally let go.

/  
>fin<p>

**A/N Sigh. My first Austin and Ally fic. I love pieces of this, I don't like pieces… oh well. Lyrics came from various places, the show, Fall to Pieces, I Wouldn't Mind, and a couple of them, I wrote. And yes, they do suck.  
>Hope you enjoyed!<br>~Tessa~**


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